The Letter
by illyriazshell
Summary: Je suis fini! Set 3 months after the end of Season 2. Dexter stalks a challenging new victim, but due to serious complications made from beyond the grave, things don't go as well as he planned...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Dexter or any of the other characters that are usually mentioned in the series. That's all Showtime and Jeff Lindsay's business.

Summary: Set 3 months after the end of Season 2. Dexter stalks a new victim, but due to some interference from beyond the grave, things don't go nearly as well as planned.

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Chapter One ( of Three)

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Tonight's the night. One of many, at least. One of too few, though, of late.

It's been three months since the Bay Harbour Butcher case was officially closed. Sergeant James Doakes, once a respected bulldog and ex-Special forces cop, is now simply a name. He's now nothing more than a boogeyman to both innocent civilians and criminals alike. Doakes's received the recognition for all Deadly Dexter's work, but in death is unable to extend me the professional courtesy of giving credit where credit's due; though I don't mind anymore. There was a time when much of Miami was privately cheering me on to clean up their city, take out the trash, but all that support is politically incorrect now it's out that one of their civil servants was the Big Bad Butcher. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been less of a blow if they knew it was a forensics geek and not a cop. Hopefully I'll never know.

But since the heat has been off me, I've been very reluctant to turn it back on. It would seem peculiar, maybe worth a second investigation, if typical Butcher victims started disappearing again after the supposed killer had been cooked in a mysterious stove-top and gas explosion. I've therefore had to refine my methods, which first and foremost meant slowing down my disposal of despicable delinquents; I've only killed two people since Lila. For most people, two people in three months is a significantly higher body count than their usual no-people-ever, but for me be assured that it has definitely taken serious willpower. It also means higher standards for potential playmates; no criminals that I would normally find easy targets. This means no drug dealers, ex-cons, or people who work with children. They are all too quickly linked to murder, and since that's the Butcher's known specialty, I've had to find the ones that no one would ever suspect of murder, and then find a way to pin the disappearances on others. Annoying, but I'm also always up for a challenge.

So this is why I sit here, parked on the side of a street in a drug dealer's car, gloves on and ready to pounce. The drug dealer in question is not my victim; he's busy with a new shipment he's bringing in using his brother's pick-up truck. He's going to wish tomorrow he had a better alibi. The man in the suit, pulling through the McDonald's drive through, is my new friend. Dave Angler. Funeral Director. Opportunist. Serial Killer.

It was challenging finding out his dirty little secret; with hundreds of dead bodies passing through his place of work every year, it's difficult to identify the ones that he brought in himself. But the sudden death of Jessica Lapin, a 7 year old girl with Leukemia and an extremely poor prognosis, caught my attention. She had been killed in a car accident, sitting in the passenger seat while her mom drove her to what looked like her last round of chemo. Her mother must have known it was going to be the last round too, because Jessica Lapin was a preneed at Angler and Sons Funeral Home.

A preneed is someone who comes in and plans their own funeral so they won't leave the disheartening job to the grieving after their death. Since many of the terminally ill have some time to kill, pre-planned funerals are popular for them. Something to do with acceptance of the inevitable.

Personally, the thought of those closest to me clamoring around my open casket, all weepy eyed and telling stories about what a loving brother/boyfriend/coworker I was, makes me uncomfortable on a level I don't even want to explore. No, I'll never tell Angel, Rita, or even Deb my secret, but the finality of people remembering me as wonderful is both ideal and yet slightly…disturbing. Best not to dwell.

Jessica had been a preneed, but her parents had not pre-paid, clearly out of hope that they wouldn't have to; that the latest treatment would work miracles and Jessica would live for another 80 years. It does actually give me a heavy feeling in the place where my heart would usually reside; I like children.

Some digging turned up two more preneeds that had also failed to put a down-payment on their funeral; Joseph Lopez and Ruth Moresil. Both had had AIDS for several years when they had made their arrangements with Angler, and both had clearly expected their loved ones to pay for the funeral once the disease had won out. What a lovely parting gift. Both Lopez and Moresil were also the victims of a hit and run while crossing the street. Few people have respect for pedestrians in this city, and it would seem that none of the witnesses at either scene were able to describe the driver or the car in question, except that it was black.

Black like the Civic in the drive-through right now, which had made several trips to the dealership coinciding with the days each of the victims had been hit. One suit-clothed arm reached in to grab the take-out bag from the second window, and Mr. Angler pulled his cheap food into his cheap car. Odd, since Funeral Directors usually make a killing. But Angler & Sons had been going struggling of late to keep the business alive; what with Angler Senior and the other son out of the picture, and Dave's nasty smack habit to boot, it was understandable that keeping the Funeral Home afloat was getting a bit too much for him to bear. Owing money to drug dealers when you don't have much to start with can make one take desperate measures. So why not off some preneeds? They were already dying anyway, and sometimes one needs the money from guaranteed business sooner rather than later. He probably reasoned with himself that it was an act of mercy. I can't begrudge him that one; one needs one's justifications…

The rent-a-cop who patrols this plaza is driving by for the third time in the past half an hour. That's good. I want him to see the drug dealer's car at the site of the future abduction, and hopefully take down the license plate. Tinted windows at night means there's no way he could possibly identify me. The security guard is driving away, and there's nobody else around. That's better. I slip from park to drive, and just as Angler is pulling from the drive through onto the road, I smash into the left side of his car. God, that was satisfying. And completely un-Dexter like; the Butcher would never attack his victim in such a flashy way. He'd keep to the shadows. Nope, this rash act lends itself to people who are trying to get attention; like drug dealers who haven't been paid.

"WHAT THE FUCK, BUDDY? DRIVE MUCH? YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!"

Don't despair over missed opportunities just yet. I've heard that when God closes one door, he opens a window. I rolled mine down.

"I'm so sorry," I slur, "Oh god. I didn't mean…hang on, let me see the damage." I pull the car in reverse a bit, park, and stumble out like I've had 12 too many. Angler gets out of his car.

"Jesus Christ! What the fuck are you doing, asshole? Are you drunk?" He shouts, clearly getting ready to punch me out.

"No…no…no" I say, which sounds incredibly like "yes, yes yes."

"I'm so, so sorry man. Let's get this shit out of the road, and then we'll exchange information."

Angler shakes his head, "Hell no. I'm not letting you hit and run. You give me your information right the fuck now."

I sigh, make a half smile, and shrug, "Yeah, ok man. Whatever the hell you want," as I turn towards my passenger window, supposedly to grab my license and registration, "it was your fault anyway."

He grabs my shoulder at that, shouting "Fuck no, you…" but whatever I was, I didn't find out, because it was at that moment I swiftly turned back around and discreetly plunged my needle into his neck. He dropped immediately, and my faux-drunken demeanor no longer required, I caught him and promptly placed him in the passenger seat. I smashed his head against the open glove-compartment; best to get some blood evidence in this car if I was going to be framing its owner. Framing had become part of my ritual, and some nights it was a burden and other nights it was exhilarating and just part of my work.

Within the next hour, it was all business. I hid his black Civic behind the plaza; out of the way for now, but not in the morning. I drove back to his funeral home, with Angler bound and gagged in the back-seat. Can't be too careful nowadays; I had been using a new tranquilizer, and it had worn off too early a few weeks before. Down in the basement was the prep-room for the bodies which were going to be viewed the next day. Fitting. Plenty of dead people had been in the room in which I was now taping my plastic tarp, but none of them had started out there as alive.

Stripping, taping, plastic wrapping, I was ready to go. But Angler wasn't awake and ready to go along with me. It seemed rude. A few slaps to the face, and a cut on the right cheek was enough to rouse him. With the same worried, unfocused and shifty eyed look that they all have when they wake with their heads tied to a table, his screams were muffled through the handkerchief in his mouth. Fear is good. I had worked hard enough to catch this guy; the satisfaction of watching him sweat before I wreaked havoc on his many limbs came easy this time, and I was definitely OK with that.

"Do you know why you're here, Dave?" I asked as I placed a drop of blood on my slide, and slid the cover on top. He simply continued to scream through his gag. I decided that it was best not to allow the volume to increase.

"Let me enlighten you, in case you've deluded yourself enough to think that you don't deserve to be here. You'd have to be slightly off, wouldn't you, in order to work here. I mean, taking money from people in their greatest time of need I understand. But causing that need? Now that's a new low, and I'm afraid I don't approve."

His screams were getting less frequent, and I hadn't done anything yet; I hoped he wasn't getting bored already. I pounced towards him, and inches from his face I began to shout.

"Joseph Lopez, Ruth Moresil, Jessica Lapin? Sound familiar? You killed them for profit. You killed them to feed your drug habit. They trusted you with their pain, and now because of you, they lost precious months they could have had left."

As I stared into his teared up eyes, a wave of satisfaction came over me. Beside his cheek, I showed him the bone saw, and then flicked the switch. His eyes flickered back from mine to the saw, and the sound the saw made when it came on barely drowned out his muffled screams.

"I hope the high was worth it."

-

Half an hour later, the blood was everywhere, especially on me, as I began to chop the body into packable parts. It was almost morning, and I still had to wrap Angler up and feed him to some hungry crocodiles. Everyone likes breakfast in bed, or swamp as the case may be.

Just then, the hairs raised on the back of my neck.

"Mother fucking mother fuck of Jesus Christ fuck."

Only one person I know is gifted with such creative wordplay.

I grabbed the side of the tarp, pulling it down to reveal someone by the door. That someone was a skinny, brown-haired cop who happened to be my sister. Deborah. The world fell away; my heart, because apparently I had one now, dropped into the pit of my stomach. Time stood still, as did both of us, and with her mouth agape and tears streaming down the side of her face, she looked at me with anger and the most painful gaze of disbelief I have ever seen on a human being.Clearly, I was not alone in asking myself if this could possibly be happening.

"Dexter? It…it was you?"

Deb turned and ran out of the basement.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Chapter 2

* * *

It varies from time to time, but it generally goes something like this.

_The nurse whispers in my ear, "She doesn't have long. Best make your peace now."_

_Deb lies on the bed, gray hair flat against the pillow. I hold her hand; she's dying, but she's not in pain. My hands are aged, but not as withered as hers. If she's old in this, I should be too, but I'm sure I can still run circles around most twenty-year-olds. The only senior citizen with washboard abs. _

"_Deb, I'm a serial killer. I was the Bay Harbour Butcher." It escapes my lips after so many years._

_She looks at me and smiles, "Damn, Dex. I'm glad you told me, but I knew all along."_

_This is unexpected, to say the least. Maybe I underestimated her ability to deal with my cold, dark truth._

_Like she knows what I'm thinking, she says "Dex. It's ok. You only killed bad people; you fucking made this world a better place. Who could be mad at that? Go on, I know you got more that you wanna say."_

_I sigh, jut my lip out, and let it pour out of me "I kill killers; I chop them up into little pieces. _I enjoy it._ I think it's because I watched my biological mother get hacked up with a chainsaw. I've got 5 wooden boxes at home, filled with glass slides, and I'm close to making it six. I don't plan on slowing down. I framed Doakes, and I killed Lila. I killed my brother; Rudy was really my brother Brian. He wanted to kill you, but I couldn't let that happen. Dad taught me everything I know; he knew what I was, what I was going to be…"_

"_Alright, alright. I'd say that's enough honesty for one deathbed. Shit, Dex. So that's why Dad spent all that time with you and neglected me?…makes sense," she pauses, and looks me in the eye, "_it's OK, Dex. I understand everything. _I'm not mad. I love you, even if you find it hard to love me back. Most importantly, thank you for everything you did to protect me. _I really appreciate it._"_

_And with that, she's gone._

On her deathbed is the only place I could really ever imagine myself voluntarily spilling my guts to my sister. But sometimes, her dying gets depressing, or I get lazy, and it goes like this.

"_Hey Deb," I say as she sits on my couch, "I framed Doakes. I'm the Bay Harbour Butcher."_

_Like a clichéd deer in clichéd headlights, Deb stares, both shocked and impressed. "Fucking eh, Dex? _

_I simply nod. _

_Raising her eyebrows, Deb muses, "Wow, I tell you, didn't see that coming. Makes a lot of sense, though."_

"_Are we alright?" I sheepishly ask._

"_Can you do me a favour? LaGuerta's been riding my ass harder than usual…"_

_My turn to raise my eyebrows, "Well I don't think she's killed anybody, but I think an exception can be made."_

_Deb grabs an open bottle of beer from my outstretched hand, "Yeah, we're cool." She takes a swig and smiles at me, "We're fucking perfect. Cheers."_

Yup. No resentment, no anger, no disgust and minimal shock. No tears, no justifications, no bullets to the head. Just understanding and acceptance. She finds out when I'm ready for her to know.

Ok, so maybe I'm more likely to win the lottery, get struck by lightning, and find myself abducted by aliens in the same day than to ever have a tell-all-conversation-with-Deb go nearly as well as either of those sequences, but a killer can dream, can't he? Judging from what just happened, though, fantasy has never so starkly contrasted reality.

* * *

It's amazing how much the total and immediate loss of control, of power and one's self-assuredness, can mimic the physical sensation of a brick being hurled at your solar plexus. Combine that with the feeling of having your invisibility cloak slip off and reveal your nudity (I needed to cut back on reading Harry Potter to Astor before bedtime), and you'll have me; a skilled monster reduced to nothing more than a pre-teen boy found "polishing his wand" by his mother. Or sister.

Deb.

Deb isn't supposed to find out this way. Deb isn't supposed to find out at all. Not really; those were just brain simulations of the best possible scenario. Never meant to be put into action.

But this is definitely a major glitch in the program. The most major a glitch could be. Whatever those dreams were, they were pretty much the opposite of a completely unaware Deb stumbling in during the high point of my gruesome hobby.

Which puts me in a very difficult position as I hear her footsteps pounding the basement stairs; I need to chase after her, to make her understand, but I'm also holding a meat cleaver. And I'm drenched in blood. Decisions, decisions.

It's dark; I'll take my chances.

I drop the cleaver, tear aside the tarp, and rush for the stairs. Just as I do, I hear the front door of the funeral home closing. I reach the main floor, watching for surprise uniformed visitors who might pop up from shadowed corners, but finding none. I head for the main door and rip it open. Out on the patio, I see her climbing into a familiar car. It's not her car, though; where have I seen it before? She eyes me, shocked as ever, pulls out of the driveway fast, and before I know it, the car is turning the corner. I manage to catch the last two digits of the plate, but it's too late. She's gone. And I'm fucked. Royally, legally, desperately S.O.L.

Do I hop in the car and chase after her? I whip out my cell phone from my back pocket and hit speed dial 2. I immediately get her answering machine.

"Deb. I need to explain. I just…call me back. You need to understand. I'm sorry."

Am I getting her machine because she's on the phone with our coworkers reporting a particularly nasty homicide?

What do I do Harry? The code only covered _don't get caught_. Everything I learned was to avoid what had just happened from ever happening. But my foster dad never trained me on what to do if an innocent person strolled in during one of my playdates and caught me, literally red handed. The only time that had ever happened was with Harry himself… and … I can't help but remember how _that_ ended.

Harry had been the architect behind my inner monster, had known about it for so long, and couldn't handle my truth. Deb had already considered hurting herself after Brian; would the shock of discovering the same truth about her nearest and dearest brother drive her to…

Shit. Deb. Please don't do anything to hurt yourself.

Cell phone out, speed dial 2. Machine again.

"Deb, please. I need to talk to you. Don't do anything to hurt…anybody." Click.

Yes, the irony of me asking that of another person has crossed my mind.

_Don't get caught. _

Important decisions need to be made now. On one hand, my sister, who happens to be an idealist and honest cop in the homicide division, is driving around with the image of me dripping in blood seared into her brain. On the other, I have Angler, the source of said blood, leaking and rotting away in his own funeral home, which is due to open for business in a couple of hours. And I don't think he's in any condition to be cleaning himself up.

Well, I hate to admit it, but as of now, the damage with Deb has already been done. If there are going to be policeman busting down my door any hour now, I can at least get rid of the overwhelming evidence against me. No need to make Masuka's job any easier. Deb's had plenty of time already to rat me out; time is one thing that's not on my side.

Back in the basement, I finish my work with lightning efficiency; but I'm not being careful enough, I can see it. I'm sacrificing a clean job for a quick one; I work worst when I'm rushed. Need to pack up the sheets, my tarp, my clothes, Angler. Need to get to the swamp before day breaks. Need to get to my boat before the early rising fishers swarm the marina. It's amazing how the intoxicating rush I normally get from the ritual disappears as the more time sensitive elements become a burden.

Swamp, done. Sea, done. Drug dealer's car returned, done.

Now that I'm off autopilot, the worry is back. Just in case I missed the vibration in my back pocket, I check my cell. No new messages. I'm just floating further and further downstream, and I don't have a paddle.

If the police are looking for me, and they have my cell phone number, what does that mean? How do they bring you in? Do they text you?

_Dex. Ur undr arrest 4 murder. Plz cum in2 work ASAP. Bring donuts. Thnx._

Would they go to my apartment and wait for me? I was at the funeral home for longer than I would have liked; is the fact that I heard no sirens a good sign?

I've never wanted to know what Deb was thinking and how she was feeling more than I did at this juncture. The key to finding out what's going to happen to me is finding Deb.

It's unlikely, but Deb's apartment is as bad a start as any. I get in my car, which was parked overnight, three blocks from the dealer's house, and within ten minutes I'm knocking on Deb's door. Even though I'm about to beg her not to turn me in, I feel Harry would say it was best to knock first.

Like her cell phone, there's no answer. Within seconds, I'm breaking and entering. So much for manners. A one minute sweep of the place, and I can tell she's not there. Though she could be hiding under all the clothing and garbage scattered across the floor; no wonder she always wants to come over to my place. Considering how I was to her when she lived with me, I think she was afraid that if I saw this mess, I'd disown her. Bet she never thought she'd be the one disowning me for seeing my mess.

Over on the kitchenette countertop, there's at least a dozen beer bottles scattered. They smell like some have been sitting here for more than a few days. Is it too much to hope that she'd been drunk when she walked in on me? That tomorrow whatever she saw was going to be a big black haze?

There's a crumpled piece of paper that's been flattened out underneath a manila envelope in between the beer bottles. I pick up the envelope; there's no address on it. It simply says "Deborah Morgan. Her eyes only" scribbled in permanent black marker. I pick it up and turn it over twice; no stamps or markings to indicate that this was sent by mail. Definitely hand delivered. I pick up the worn piece of paper; it reeks of beer and various foods. Clearly this had once been in the garbage for a time before it made its way back to the counter. I read the paper.

"_Morgan,"_

I recognize that neat printing of my last name immediately. I'd walked in to my office several times over the years only to find it on sticky notes preceding gems like "where's my motherfucking blood spatter report?"

"_That you're reading this means that I'm dead and the truth's dead with me. Whatever my death has been made to look like, you need to know I didn't die in an accident and I certainly didn't kill myself. _

_At the time of this letter, the evidence is saying I'm the Bay Harbour Butcher. You need to know that its bullshit; I'm not the Butcher. In fact, right now I'm tracking down the evidence on the real Butcher, but obviously I have failed. This letter is meant to reach you if I die and Lundy fails to catch the real killer. _

_The person I've been tracking is Dexter, and I have overwhelming evidence to suspect he's the Bay Harbour Butcher. He's really the killer, Deborah, I know he is. Most importantly, the blood slides LaGuerta told me Lundy found in my car, I found in your brother's apartment. Before I was suspended, Dexter manipulated everyone into thinking my judgment wasn't credible. Everytime I got closer to exposing him, he'd make it look like I was losing my shit. Don't underestimate him; the fucker's smart. He's been hiding the truth from everybody he supposedly cares about his entire life, especially you; he knows how to cover his tracks. What really scares me is that he's on the forensics team processing his own evidence; there's no way he's not going to frame me. _

_I know that this is a lot to process. You may never even believe me; you may think that this is a desperate last attempt to screw with your head. But the little lies that weren't s obvious before are going to stand out, and you're going to have to know. Just follow Dexter for a week. When he says he's spending the night at his girlfriend's, you need to tail him. It won't take long after I'm dead and there's no one to watch him before he's going to need to kill again. But you need to be smart; switch up the cars, monitor his computer usage. Throw away the book on this one. And if you don't find anything suspicious, no problem; don't tell anyone and move on. Burn this letter if you have to. _

_But sooner or later, you ARE going to find something suspicious. I know you. And I know you'll do the right thing. Morgan, you're a good cop, and even though I gave you a hard time when you first joined homicide, I've always liked and respected you. I don't want to load you down with more shit after all the Ice Truck Killer business, but as good a cop as you are, you've always been blind to the faults of those closest to you. Now's your chance to make amends. It's up to you now that I'm gone. I'm sorry._

_James Doakes"_

The letter falls from my hands, and I stare blankly into the distance. I had been so concerned _that_ Deb had caught me I hadn't even pondered _why _or even _how. _

So Sergeant Doakes decided to make one last ditch effort to **Fuck With My Life **from beyond the grave. For the first time since they explosion, I wished he was still alive…so I could kill him. Slowly, painfully, uninterrupted. No wonder he was untroubled by the thought of me killing him in that cage; he'd made sure that once he turned up dead, my secret would slip out anyway. That seemed to be all he had wanted. All he'd cared about was exposing me, more than life itself.

Who's the motherfucker now, Doakes? Who, between the two of us, is really the sick psycho?

_Click._

The sound comes from my left, the sound of a gun cocking. Without moving my head, my eyes look left to see my sister's arms resting on the kitchen window and both arms gripping a firearm less than a foot from my head. Apparently I'm still the sick psycho, in her eyes at least.

"Deb…"

"In the drawer, to your right, is a pair of handcuffs. Slowly, so I can see, put them on. If I see you reach for anything else, I'll blow your fucking brains out." She says it like she's reading instructions from a cue card.

"Deb…"

She shouts forcefully, "DO IT!"

I do. I don't reach for anything else, but I pivot in her direction as I snap on the second cuff.

"Now slowly walk backwards to the couch and sit down. Underneath my blue sweater is another pair of cuffs. Snap them to your ankles. No goddamn sudden movements."

I comply by slowly walking backwards. I could still take her with the handcuffs the way I took Doakes; but unlike Doakes, I care about not hurting Deb. The kitchen window is large and almost reaches the floor, so she doesn't have trouble keeping her eye and her gun on me as she climbs through it. The couch isn't too far away, so I sit down, and like she asks, I reach around for the cuffs underneath her sweater while keeping my eyes on her. I snap them on my legs. Handcuffs and leg cuffs. I'm harmless.

Then it hits me; she planned this. She set up the letter out in the open so I would see it, get distracted by the horror of another person knowing about my crimes, pounced when I least expected it, and now I'm at her mercy. I've done it to so many people, how could I have missed the pattern? Gotta say, I'm walking in the shoes of my victims and I'm finding them mighty uncomfortable. Sloppy, Dex, very sloppy.

Deb grabs a chair, flips it around backwards and sits down; one arm hugging the backrest, and the other rested with the gun still pointing at me. Whatever emotions she's feeling right now, she's doing an exceptionally good job at hiding them from me. Her face is like stone; she just stares with nothing but hollowness in her eyes. I've never seen this before; for the first time, I'm scared of my sister.

"Deb, listen…"

"I am listening," she says with robotic monotony, "You wanted to talk. Here I am. Talk."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **So here I am; final and longest chapter of my first Dexter fic. Considering I have 5 exams next week, it's been quite the journey to get to this final destination. What I'm trying to say is that I knew the ending long before I started toying with this story; it was the only one that seemed logical to me if this scenario was ever to play out on the show. So thank you very much for reading and all of your encouraging reviews up until now; they've meant a lot. Forgive me if this doesn't go the way you wanted, but it's how it has to be.

* * *

Chapter 3

* * *

Little did Harry know that around the time that he started toying with the notion that my inner darkness could be channeled into something useful for society, I had already committed my first act of (misguided and unplanned) vigilante justice.

Deb hadn't been into the more feminine aspects of her childhood; she hated Barbies, she'd thrown her Easy Bake Oven out of a window on a dare. But the one phase she went through which confirmed that Deb had actually been born a girl was when she'd fallen in love with her friends' white toy poodle, Amber. She doted and fawned over that dog, giggling whenever it licked her nose, and took picture after picture with the poor thing propped up in various "cute" positions. I didn't get it at all; I couldn't find it in my heart to love another human being, let alone a different species. But it was comforting when Harry assured me that even if I'd had normal feelings, as a teenage boy, it still would've been over my head.

Deb's thing with the dog went on for about a year, which is why she had been devastated when Amber had severely scratched her stomach and almost tore a plum-sized chunk out of her right calf. They were never able to figure out why the sweet little ball of fluff had suddenly attacked Deb; it didn't have rabies, and as the friend's father explained to Harry, Amber hadn't even attacked so much as a fly in her short life.

The scar on Deb's leg eventually faded when she found some 'miracle' moisturizer in high school, but she had still been livid that night at the hospital, getting her stitches. Shouting one minute, crying in my arms the next, which I let her do with Harry's encouragement, she'd sworn that she'd never go near the dog again. What had particularly stuck out in my mind was her outrage that "they're not even going to put the little fucker down!" My sister, ever a supporter of capital punishment. Unknown to her, so was I; though I've always been a little more proactive than most.

When a week had passed and it had been made clear that Amber was not getting the electric chair or however they dispose of delinquent doggies, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Deb was my sister after all, and I didn't think it was right that something that could attack her should be allowed to attack again. But more importantly, this was a great excuse to feed my urge; by that point Harry had indoctrinated me with the need for such justifications. This moral code installation had of course been before all of Harry's careful instructions on how to uphold it; though he never did show me the finer points of canineicide. So I had clumsily broke into Deb's friend's house one Sunday morning while the family was at church, and proceeded to commit something quite un-Godly. It was messy; hindsight is always 20/20, and now I'm older and wiser, I should have simply snapped the dog's neck instead of stabbing it. Rookie mistakes.

But what really shocked me wasn't the blood, but Deb's reaction to the news of Amber's killing later that day. Naively, I had thought she would have been overjoyed; but she was more upset than ever. "_I say tons of shit when I'm mad that I don't mean_." This little complexity about female emotions Deb imparted on me when Rita and I broke up hadn't been explained to me at such a tender age, so when I had taken her at her word, it had apparently been the wrong thing to do. If I could have felt bad, I would have; but I took it as a lesson learned and moved on, or I would have if Deb hadn't have confronted me.

Because the next night, when Harry and Doris went out for dinner, Deb showed me the knife, my knife, which she had found in my sock drawer freshly stained with blood. Another rookie mistake. She yelled and screamed and called me a dog killer. I did what any young sociopath would do; deny, deny, deny with a look of innocence. She was persistent, though, trying to get me to confess my sin; saying she would have understood if I'd hurt Amber because the dog had attacked her. I countered that the dog deserved to be punished but I had nothing to do with it. Eventually she gave up, went to her room and slammed the door; but often throughout our teen years when we'd gotten into a fight, she'd bring it back up in the heat of the moment, desperately trying to frighten the truth out of me.

And now, as Deb points the gun square at my forehead, it's clear to me that several years on the force have improved her interrogation technique.

"I'm waiting," Deb says.

What to say? I hadn't really thought it through when I chased after her and left her those messages; I guess I'd hoped that "I'm your brother and I love you" was going to suffice. But judging from this turn of events, that won't do the trick. I'm just reacting; I need to act.

"Deb, have you called the police?"I ask slowly.

"I am the fucking police. Or did you forget that?" Deb counters. "You're the police, too, Dex. May not be an actual cop, but hell, all these years, I thought you were as good as."

No response to that. I ask, "Alright, but did you call what you saw in to the station?"

"What does it matter?"

"Because, Deb" I start, "it matters how honest I'm going to be with you."

I watch as she mulls it over. "No, I haven't called the station. Yet."

Good. She's more into listening to me talk than having the upper hand. That's good for me. Well, better for me, at least.

"What did you see, Deb?" I ask.

"We're not playing 20-fucking-questions! I'm the one with the gun here, Dex. I'm the cop. Why don't you tell me what I fucking saw? Because I sure as shit don't understand it." Her stone-like demeanor is cracking; her anger is overpowering her sense of professional duty.

"What do you want to know?" I ask. I need for her to ask the questions instead of me spilling; I might reveal something that can just as easily stay buried.

She pauses. "Why were you stalking that man for the past two nights? Why did you crash a stolen car into his and knock him out? Why, when I walked into the basement, were you covered in blood and hacking his body into pieces?"

"How long have you been tailing me?"

"ANSWER. THE. FUCKING. QUESTION."

Those are a lot of questions; maybe I should rethink my strategy. They could all simply be answered by _"I'm the Bay Harbour Butcher and he was a bad man." _Besides, with Doakes' letter, she already knows. I'll try the latter on for size. Start with the good, and slowly work my way over to the bad.

"He killed three people in car accidents. He owned the funeral home, and they had already pre-arranged their funerals there because they were sick. They hadn't paid him, and he needed money for his drug habit, so he killed all three of them." Work the sympathy, Dexter. Pretend to be holding back tears. "One of them was a little girl, Deb."

Deb closes her eyes and slightly shakes her head at that. "Alright, so the guy was scum. If you knew that, why didn't you report him, eh? Why, instead, did you think it was a good goddamn idea to off him?"

Because I _wanted_ to kill him.

"Deb, you have to understand something…"

"Are you the fucking Bay Harbour Butcher, Dexter?" she cuts me off.

Well there it is. Time to do what any sociopath would do;

"No," I lie. Like I've lied to her so many times; our whole life I've lied to Deborah. And it never, ever was a problem for me. Lying to Deb was like visiting the men's room; necessary and quickly forgotten. But this two-letter lie is the most blatant I've ever told, and it's even more tangible with a gun aimed right between my eyes. It's not easy, it's not working; and strangest of all, it _feels_ bad.

I bring my handcuffed hands to my face, close my eyes and lean over in my lap. Now that I can't see her expression, it makes it somewhat easier. "Yes," I whisper, but it's muffled by my palms.

"What was that?" I hear.

"Yes," I say louder.

"What?"

Enough. I rip my hands away from my face and jump up. "Yes! I'm the 'fucking' Bay Habour Butcher!" The leg cuffs make me unbalanced and I fall back onto the couch. That didn't feel any better than the lie. I kick her blue sweater with both feet.

"Alright, Dexter. You're the Butcher," she says, as if she's trying to convince herself. "Did you kill him?"

For most people, the answer is a flat-out No, but for me that question requires the asker to specify pronouns.

"Did I kill who?"

"Doakes," Deb asks.

Ah; that one's complicated.

"No…"

"Are you shitting me?"

"I didn't kill Doakes, I swear. I couldn't have; he wasn't a killer."

Deb scoffs: "He was going to expose you and you knew it. I just saw you dismember a man; you're telling me you couldn't kill Doakes because you have _standards?_"

It sounds dumb when she says it out loud, but it doesn't make it any less true.

"I didn't kill Doakes," I say. "I wanted to, believe me." She doesn't believe me. It's the same as the dog, only this time I'm telling the truth.

"I was going to frame him, and hand him over to the police... Lila; she found him in that cabin. You saw how crazy she was over me; she saw my mistake, I guess…but she was dangerous. I had to get rid of her."

And with that, the same look of pure disgust from when she first caught me creeps back on her face. Would it have been better if I _had_ killed him? Maybe she'll forgive me for Lila; Deb hated Lila. She takes a minute before she says anything; I stare out the window. I need to get out of here, but how? and then, what next?

"You were going to frame Doakes, but not kill him? That shit doesn't make any sense. He would have just kept on saying 'Dexter's the killer' until the day he fucking died."

"I know. That's the mistake Lila saw. I hadn't thought it through when I came up with it." I say honestly.

"You hadn't thought it through? But when you did, framing him and then making it look like he committed suicide never crossed your mind? And miraculously, Lila got rid of him for you?"

Why is she so focused on Doakes? You'd think admitting to any murder at all would signal I have nothing else to hide. Wasn't the fact that I had killed over 40 people enough for her to hate me for all of time? Why did she need to know if I'd killed Doakes, too?

Ahh. She wants to know if I'm going to kill her. Well, in my current state, that's a physical improbability. But Doakes was innocent, like she is innocent. Both found out my secret; and she wants to know if she's going to end up like him.

"Deb, I'm not going to hurt you. I can't. I won't. I didn't kill Doakes, and I'd _never_ even think…"

"How the fuck do I know that, Dexter?! Rudy was…Do you have any idea how hard it's been? And now, you … all along?!" Whatever she'd been holding back, some of it must have slipped, because two tears streamed down either side of her face as she blinked. Instinctually, as Harry had always taught me, I move to comfort my upset sister…

"Sit down. Don't you fucking move, don't you dare touch me." Deb shouts, still crying; the gun still aimed at me, but her aim falters.

Why did she have to bring up Brian? If I don't stop her now, she's going to learn everything. That's bad…for both of us.

Deb, practically in tears shouts at me, "I need to know why. Why?! You've gotten away with this _for years_, under everyone's nose, under mine_._ What made you decide one day that brutally murdering people would solve the world's problems?"

"Deb, listen. Stop digging. Please. You have to trust me."

"Ha!"

"I'm telling you, as your brother, you have to stop. Either shoot me now, turn me in, or let me go and you'll never hear from me again if you don't want to. But you can't keep at this. You can't handle the truth."

"Who are you, Jack Nicholson? No, I want answers. You've been lying to me my whole life. What could be worse than finding out _my brother_ is the Bay Harbour Butcher!?"

I look down. "A lot."

"Try me. Why? And look me in the eye when you tell me."

I don't know why she needs _that._ I've been perfectly fine with looking her in the eye and lying to her my whole life; but I'm not the one with the gun, so I'm not calling the shots.

"I'm not sure why. I've always been this way, as long as I can remember, Deb."

"Like, when we were kids? Did you…did you hurt anyone when we…"

"No, not anyone. But I did…you can't understand, I had these urges. So, I curbed my…need… with small animals. Neighborhood pets; cats, dogs…"

"Amber! I fucking knew it."Deb almost looked triumphant.

"Yes. Amber. Which I only did for you."

Lucky for me, though, she doesn't dwell on the poodle. Unlucky for me, she's thirsty for more answers. "But, why? Like, I can't understand your need to kill. Doesn't make fucking sense to me. It sounds like bull; all boys are destructive."

"Deb, it was…different with me. It probably had something to do with my mother's death."

Her eyebrows raise, and Deb looks puzzled. "Your mother? Mom's dying of cancer made you… or…wait. You mean _your_ mom." She gives me a hard look, "I thought you couldn't remember the accident."

"It wasn't an accident." I sigh. For once, the emotion's real, "recently, more and more of my memories from before have been surfacing, and I know my mother was murdered. In front of me, when I was 3. She had been part of a drug deal gone wrong, and her and three other guys were killed with a chainsaw in a cargo container. I was there. Dad, Harry, found me in a pool of her blood 2 days later. That's the crime scene he found me at; I'm guessing when I didn't remember, he didn't want to encourage it. He wanted to protect me."

Deb brings her hand to her face, "Oh god, oh god, Dex. I had no idea."

"Neither did I. Until a few months ago when I did some digging," I lean back to the couch. Finally being able to get that off my chest to Deb relaxes me slightly.

Deb's quick to drop the sympathy, though, "But fucked up memories or not, that doesn't give you the right…"

"It's not about _right_, Deb. It's not some mission for me. I need it. It's who I am. Even knowing where my… urges, my need, comes from doesn't make it go away."

I give a slight pause and come to a realization; nothing's going to make this better or worse for Deb. She already knows too much, no point in being careful anymore. It's about making her understand. It's the only way I'll survive this, the only way that I won't break the golden rule.

"I think Harry knew that."

The colour drains from Deb's face. "…what…" she whispers. "No."

She gets up, takes the gun off me, and starts pacing back and forth. She stops to look at me a few times, shakes her head and continues to pace, repeating "No" and a few choice expletives.

"I told you that you didn't want to know."

"No, I'm not going to let you call him in to question like this. Dad was a god. He was a good man, he wouldn't have let you…he couldn't have known."

"He did. Deb, he knew."

"No."

"He trained me…"

"No!"

"Deb, think! He saw what I was when I was young. He was afraid of what I would become, but he loved me. He didn't want to see me in jail or in an institution, but he knew he wouldn't be able to stop me from killing. If you think about it…Dad hated to see a criminal walk free."

The realization began to dawn on her face, "Oh my god…" She was remembering all the time Harry spent with me and not with her, teaching me to shoot, our hunting weekends on which she could never participate; I could see the confusion and neglect she'd felt her whole life make sense to her for the first time.

Within seconds, she stood over my hunched form on the couch, barrel touching my forehead; another major backfire.

"Deb…you don't want this…you're better than this…" I say, emphasizing every syllable, cross eyes looking past the gun into her eyes. "I'm your brother…"

She stares back, another tear streams down her left cheek, "Fuck!"

All goes black, then white and I feel an explosion…but it's behind my right eye, and the darkness lasts only a moment. The pain…the pain lasts longer, though. I bring my cuffed hands to the side of my head; blood. It takes a moment to realize that she smacked my head with the pistol. I'm not dead; just bleeding and will soon be sporting one hell of a headache.

Another few seconds, and I regain my senses; Deb's in her kitchen now. I see her crack open a beer. Is that really smart? I'm not going to hurt her if I don't have to, but if I had Disturbingly Devious Dexter hostage, I'd want to keep my wits about me.

She chugs the beer back without coming up for air, then looks at me as I'm trying and failing to nurse my new gash. Almost in hysterics, she yells "You had no right…you come into my home. Take my parents, my father, and steal my time with him…for your perverted, twisted sickness. You sick bastard…you fucking psycho…you disgust me."

_I say tons of shit when I'm mad that I don't mean_.

Is this one of those times? I hope so.

"Deb…"

"Officer Morgan."

"Deborah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I couldn't be the brother you wanted, the one you'd always thought you had. I'm sorry I took Harry from you; it's not that he thought I was the better child. It's that he was afraid…afraid that I'd hurt someone without him keeping me on a tight leash. He was protecting you, and I understand why. It's the same reason I've been protecting you all of these years…"

"From yourself?" she says, and the mocking tone is back.

"From the truth! You, Rita…"

"That doesn't fucking cut it. You were protecting yourself from the electric chair, and you couldn't give a goddamn about anyone else other than yourself because otherwise you wouldn't KILL PEOPLE."

"It was to protect you; like I protected you from Rudy."

"Don't you fucking bring him into this like you're some goddamn hero. You're no better than him."

"I DON'T KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE. That's why I had to…" I trail off.

She paused…"'why you had to' what? Huh, Dexter? What did you have to do?"

Is she going to freak out on me, like the dog? But this is different. The dog wasn't my brother; the only other person in the world who understood me. The other sibling, the one that approved of my habits. Maybe she'll feel guilty if she knows that I sacrificed a life of unreasoned freedom to keep her alive.

"When he came after you….you don't understand. I never wanted you to know, and I'm not trying to hold it over you, like you owe me something…But I...killed my brother to protect you."

"You're...brother..."

If she was capable of fainting, she'd do it right here and now. But, as things were, she lost consciousness while functioning as if she's wide awake.

Ten (relatively) uncomfortable minutes passed, where she just stares at me. But she's not really staring at me; it's like she's looking past me, through the walls, and off into oblivion. I try to throw details in every few minutes; he was also at the crime scene but Harry left him, the killings were really clues for me to figure out my own troubled past. But she either shushes me, or doesn't hear them. Or doesn't want to hear them. Perhaps she's had enough truth. Finally,

"Get up. Stand."

I do as I'm told.

"Move towards the door. Slowly."

Again, I listen to her instructions. In fact, I don't make one move to escape as she ushers me into the driver's seat of her car. I only try and hint that with all four of my limbs constrained, driving may be unwise; but Deb just slips in the back seat and, gun to my neck, orders me to go. It's more difficult than I imagined, but I manage.

"Where are we going?" She doesn't answer, but continues to give directions. Is she setting me free now that she knows what I sacrificed for her safety? I'd like to think so, but once again I find myself at the mercy of my own techniques; I've been in the back seat too many times to forget that it's all about instructing the driver to their certain doom.

After several miles of "keep going straight" and "turn here," I get to a familiar road. The intersection's approaching and Deb says nothing.

"Deb, am I going straight?" to the police station, "or making a right turn?" back to my apartment?

Nothing.

"Deb, straight or right?"

Still nothing.

"Deb!"

"Right! Turn right, goddamn it." And with the feeling of a boulder being lifted from my stomach, I comply.

Finally parked outside my complex, she pulls me out of the car with complete disregard for the fact that it's daylight. From her back pocket, she pulls out a keychain with two silver keys and throws them at my feet, getting into the driver's seat as she does. I look down at the keys on the ground, and then up at her. She lowers her sunglasses onto her face.

"You want me to trust you? Be here tonight when I come back. I haven't made my decision yet; but if I come back tonight and you're not here…I'll know what the right call was. And I'll make it."

With that, she reverses into the street. I watch as her car pulls around the corner. Then I jump to the ground, fumble with the keys a bit and in a minute I'm free of my chains.

Deb is quite generous considering the circumstances; I can't think of a worse way all of this could have come out. Despite everything she heard, she saw…she wants to trust me. She wants me to stay put…so she can come by later tonight and tell me that a particularly vengeful LaGuerta's outside ready with the FBI so she can clear Doakes' name?

Love you, sis, or I would if I could, but the number one rule still applies.

Back in my apartment, it takes me roughly an hour to pack up my life; I've always been ready for this, if I needed to be. My car is still at Deb's place, so that option's out. Besides, I need to dump my equipment; the only incriminating thing needs to be my total disappearance. Maybe if I take the boat; though it's really conspicuous, especially in daylight. Not the ideal escape…

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

I look at my cell phone: it's Batista. I am fairly late for work, but after what's happened this morning, any call from a police officer is unwelcome. I answer it anyway; after thinking about it from before, it's unlikely that they'd arrest me over the phone.

"Morgan here," I chime, happily.

"Dex, listen," he somberly asks. "I need to tell you something. I didn't want them to…I wanted you to hear it from me first…"

* * *

Doakes was right. The cancer had spread. It had spread to Harry, to Lila, even to Brian somewhat. I didn't believe him when he said it could spread to Rita or the kids, or to my sister. But I was wrong; everything I touch turns to shit.

What they couldn't figure out was why Deborah had run the red light. According to witnesses in neighbouring cars, hers had been fully stopped at the intersection for at least 20 seconds before it had rolled out into the path of an oncoming Mack truck. The coroners said she was dead on impact; my one saving grace.

Whether she hadn't seen the truck and was racing to the station, or she had truly decided to deal with my truth the same way that Harry did, I'll never know. Neither one's OK.

It doesn't matter; she's gone. It's my fault. My very existence caused the death of another innocent person, and the one person left in this world that I cared about most.

Just like tragedy of my mother's death sealed my emotions away, I can feel them threatening to return at the loss of Dear Deborah. I'll go to the funeral tomorrow, but I won't need the shades this time. And then I'm gone too. I'm done with Miami, and it was done with me a long time ago. Rita will deal; it's better for me to mysteriously disappear than for her whole family to go through even a tenth of what Deb and Harry went through. I can't watch it destroy her too.

The police won't find me; years of planning and keen observation of my co-workers has assured me of that. Hell, all these years, they were too busy eating my donuts and eying my sister to notice that a monster more terrible than they ever dreamed of was hiding in plain sight; if only they'd taken a harder look.

For their sakes, I hope they never do.

* * *

The End.

* * *

Reviews always welcome, and check out my new story, "I See You." Thanks again!

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